The lieutenant was almost surely newly assigned to combat in the Pacific, but with his plane on fire, he managed to break away and pancake the burning fighter somewhere on Mindoro Island. He was quickly rescued by U.S. Army Tank Corps troops, largely indicated by the fresh signs of tanks having passed quite recently.
This story is from the June 2020 edition of Flight Journal.
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This story is from the June 2020 edition of Flight Journal.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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Scourge of the Allied Fighters
IT HAD TO BE THE MOST HELPLESS FEELING in the world: you're at 25,000 feet over Europe knowing that your primary function is to drop bombs-or flying escort for the bombers while being a slow-moving target for some of the world's finest shooters. However, you have John Browning's marvelous .50 caliber invention to give some degree of protection. Unfortunately, you're absolutely helpless against flak. Piloting and gunnery skills play no role in a game where sheer chance makes life and death decisions. For that reason, the Krupp 88 mm Flak 18/36/37 AA cannon could be considered WW II's ultimate stealth fighter. You never saw it coming.
ZERO MYTH, MYSTERY, AND FACT
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American BEAUTY
\"Forgotten Fifteenth\" top-scoring Mustang ace John J. Voll
KILLER CORSAIR
Albert Wells, Death Rattlers Ace
BACKSTREET BRAWLER
A young man, his Hurricane and the Battle of Britain
Still Flying After All These Years
One of the oldest airworthy J-3 Cubs
A good landing is one you can walk away from
NO, THIS IS NOT A SCENE FROM A MOVIE where the hero staggers away from a \"good landing\" on Mindoro, Philippine Islands, after being shot down by a Japanese Zero.
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By the time Lieutenant General Richard Reynolds retired from the USAF in 2005, he’d had a distinguished 34-year career as a B-52 pilot, an Air Force test pilot with experience flying 72 different aircraft types, a B-2 system program office director, a commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, and more.
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As I sat silently in my B-25-shrewdly named \"Fickle Finger of Fate\"awaiting the signal from the Navy deckhand to start my engines, I thought long and hard about how I ended up here and about the unknown that lay ahead.